


light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder

by gaywardsun



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25317283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaywardsun/pseuds/gaywardsun
Summary: Simon has been going through a lot. Finding out about his family as well as dealing with his loss of magic.Baz has met up with Lamb to find out more about his vampirism. He is still learning to deal with who he is and what the implications of all this new-found information might be.What would happen if they broke up.
Relationships: Lamb & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Lamb/Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Penelope Bunce & Simon Snow, Penelope Bunce & Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Simon Snow/Original Male Character(s), Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch & Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 26
Kudos: 48





	light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder

**Author's Note:**

> cw // cheating, death of old age, non-explicit sex scene
> 
> I would like to add a MAJOR preface that I do NOT ship LambxBaz. This fic started out as a joke, but my stubbornness has led us all to this point.  
> ENJOY! (or not)

**Lamb**

What is a day, a week, a year, to a man sentenced to infinity. 

I came to these people, _my people,_ young and hopeless, all those years ago. After they had burned down my family and I was the only luckless bastard who had survived. I came to them looking for a haven, somewhere we didn't have to live in the shadows. Long ago when time held meaning and I still believed in love. 

My mother used to tell me stories of a land far away, where people like me, _like us,_ lived free and in the open, fearless and proud.

I don't remember my mother anymore, her face nothing but a hazy memory, her photographs washed away in a voyage I took long, long ago. I don't remember the stories either. I just remember the shine in her eyes and the hope in her voice as she told me the anecdotes before she put me to bed every night.

Maybe they weren't stories of a land that existed, but a future she wanted. For all of us, for so many children like me.

So when I reached America and saw my people lost, scattered, afraid and vulnerable, I decided to become what they needed. I worked day and night to make that land a reality, the land my mother and I had dreamed of all that time ago. 

I became the King they needed, and together, we became stronger than we ever had before.

I knew what I was getting myself into when I chose this life. The price I had to pay. I never got involved, never had any relationships. Never dared fall in love. 

Once a Normal had come along, when it was all still new to me, when I still hadn't learned how to put my guard up and shut my heart out. He smiled at me, and blushed a shade of pink so pretty I couldn't take my eyes off him. 

And one time, he had looked at me, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment I had a thought that I would give it all up if it meant I got to lay with him under the gentle moonlight, if I got to hold and kiss him until we both forgot who we were and why it would never work.

So just as the thought had come to me, I crushed it away. I took him to a dark alley, saw the hope in his eyes turn to suspicion turn to fear as I drained him dry. I burned his body as so many of his people had done to mine. 

I kept his ashes with me, in a pendant around my neck. As a reminder of who I was and what I was here to do. Serving my people, making sure that no one else like me ever got burned within an inch of their life. As a reminder that my purpose here was more important than any of the silly schoolboy fantasies I harboured.

I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and barred them in a cage made of steel. 

I have taken many men and women to bed since then. But none of them ever see the light of the next day.

That was before I met Baz Pitch.

**Baz**

_Simon Snow._

_The way you were. There wasn't a day when I believed we'd both live through it._

He pushed me away, everyday a little farther, a little harder.

_I comb my hair. I button my shirt._

I'd loved him through everything. When I knew he had to kill me, when he saved me from myself in that burning forest. When he went off on me, all curses and spiteful words soaring out, when he lay beside me, head on my chest, holding onto me like an anchor. I'd loved him when I knew he would never love me back, and I loved him still.

But he didn't want me anymore.

_I pack my bag. I start the car._

I don't know which one of us gave in first. He would visit his grandmother, and he would come back colder every time until all recognition was lost in his eyes. 

Neither Penelope nor I knew what was going on. He never told us anything, about what they discussed, what he knew, what he was going through. We just watched him slip away into a man we didn't recognize anymore. 

_I start the car. I drive until I hit the freeway. I'm almost speeding._

I never should've gone back to America. 

Never should've believed Simon when he told me it was okay, that he didn't mind. I should've said no but I wanted answers. I had so many questions, about who, _what_ , I was. I shouldn't have been so selfish. 

I wasn't ready to meet the Simon I came back to. This wasn't my Simon, this was a hollow of him, carved out by a monster that had settled within him. He barely looked at me anymore, and when he did, he was all bite.

_I go through security. I find my seat. The plane takes off._

Lamb. 

He told me everything. Everything I had ever needed to know about who I was, what I had the potential to become. I asked him a question, he answered it and then million more that I had never even dreamed of asking. 

Maybe somewhere through all this, the lines began to blur. I no longer knew if he understood me because he knew what I was or if he just understood _me_.

_I shut my brain off. I land. I get my stuff. I call myself a ride. I shut off my heart._

"Simon, you can't do this. I love you."

It was a weak attempt. I was grasping at every straw and hoping one stuck. He wanted me to leave, he wanted me gone.

"Simon, love…"

"Don't call me that." I'd never seen him look like that. Never seen his eyes burn so red. For a moment, I thought he might go off.

"You said… you said it was okay. I went to get my answers. Simon, I came back to you. I always would."

I'd never felt so desperate in my entire life. So close to begging.

"Did you kiss him?" 

The questions took us both by surprise. I could see it in his eyes, neither of us knew where it had come from. 

Except he did. It came from his midnight insecurities when he lay in bed alone thinking he wasn't good enough.

"I love you, Simon."

Except I did, I knew where it came from too.

"Not the question I asked you, Pitch."

It came from the guilt that ate me raw every night, and it spit me out a traitor and an asshole.

"Simon, love…"

"Get out."

_He's waiting for me. There's a smile on his face, and something that looks a lot like hope. It makes him look so much younger. He looks like he could be my age. But he's not, I know he's not._

I never meant to let it happen. I loved Simon with every fibre of my being and every inch of my undead heart. But there was doubt creeping in like a dark cloud before the storm. 

I loved him and for what? He would have never loved me back; he could have never been happy with me. I was keeping him trapped when he could have been happier somewhere else, someone he could find peace with. 

I should've pushed Lamb away. But... after I heard him talk-- _oh the way he talked_ , about his people, _about me_ \-- he made me feel like we could be something. Like there was a world where monster and humanity could meet a middle ground. 

I should've pushed him away. Instead, I let his lips linger on mine, let him kiss me and fill me with hope we both knew was false. 

I should've pushed him off but I didn't. And for what?

_I had forgotten how large his house was, and it looks even bigger now that it's empty. I don't see people rushing in and out as they did the last time I was here. I can hear him speak, see him bring out some food and set up a table for two. Everything is hazy around me. He says something and I answer, but my mind isn't comprehending what is going on around me, and maybe I just don't want it to. I focus on the furniture, the tall ceilings, the paintings on the wall as he leads me to a room I've never been in before. In my head, I know it's his._

Penelope tries to stop me, Agatha tries. But I can't stay. I can't look Simon in the eyes after what I did. 

Maybe one day he can learn to forgive me. One day when he is living his life, filled with all the happiness he deserves, with someone he loves and I am but a memory in his mind.

_I let him take off my clothes. He unbuttons my shirt, unzips my jeans. There's a gentleness to him that I didn't know he was capable of. He touches me with care. I can feel him against me, skin to skin. I can feel him kiss me, and I find myself kissing back. I shut off everything. It's my body, but it doesn't feel like my own. Like I am watching all this happen to someone else. I let him whisper sweet words and promises in my ear, let him push me down, kiss my face, my neck, my chest, my stomach, my hips, as he wanders lower, lower, lower…_

In a perfect world, I would've never kissed Lamb when he came on to me. I would've come back to find Simon, sure about myself and who I was, and then I would have helped him find himself. 

We would've lived a disgustingly long and happy life. Maybe he would've slowly withered away leaving me nothing but memories to last an eternity. Maybe he would've convinced me to Turn him.

Either way, he would've been mine. And I would've been able to stand straight and say I had deserved him too.

_I feel the wetness on my cheeks and realize I'm crying. Everything I left behind me, everything I let go of. I don't bother to hide my tears. He's so gentle as he wipes them off my face, and then again as fresh ones pour in. He tells me it will be okay. That we have all the time in the world. That we're forever. But that only makes me cry harder._

There was always a possibility that I would live my life unchanged as I watched Simon grow older and older, until he was nothing. I could never Turn him and curse him to the wretched life I lived, no matter how much he might have wanted it.

I would've burned myself the day he was gone, but I know he would wring promises out of me to live for him forever. 

I would have been cursed to an eternity of nothingness. I would have had to watch him go before my eyes, then our children, then their children and on and on in this vicious cycle.

I thought I could take it. That I would go through anything just to have him all for me. Just a few decades of memories to keep me going through the endless abyss waiting for me.

They say you forget. That your life goes on for so long that sometimes you forget the ones you loved the most, you forget their face, the way they felt, the way their smile felt against your skin, the way they made you feel like your life was a little more worth living. You go on for so long you start to forget why you loved them in the first place.

But not me.

Not Simon Snow. 

How could I ever have forgotten Simon Snow, how could I ever have let him go.

_He's everywhere. Around me, inside me. A twisted part of my brain understands that it feels good. That I like it. That I will learn to. I reach around and grasp at him. And suddenly he's turning me over so we're facing each other. I grab his shoulders just for the sake of having something to hold on to. I hide my face in the crook of his neck. He's got one of his arms around me, the other he's using to stroke my hair. A constant stream of tears is pouring from my eyes, sobs racking through me. But he doesn't mind._

_He's so good to me. Maybe one day, I will learn to love him. I have centuries to put my heart back together, piece by broken piece. He says he will never leave me and for once I believe him. I believe him as he keeps pushing inside, then pulling back, and then pushing again. I let the guilt wash over me and douse me in self-hatred as I give in. I let it all feel good, as I wring pleasure from the pain mixed in with all that he's giving me. His hand disappears from where it's cupping my face to travel lower. I let myself feel everything as I feel him go still above me, his eyes gloss over but his hand keeps moving. I let him whisper promises in my ear and I let myself believe…_

I didn't look at him when he left. I didn't leave a note. Didn't say goodbye. I can see the coming years. Me trying to let him go, watching him from afar as he lives the life he was always meant to, filled with the happiness that fate owes him. I'll watch him learn to laugh again, and rely on shoulders that aren't mine. Maybe I'll never really let go. But I hope he does. In the end, that's what will matter the most.

_Simon Snow._

_The way you were. There wasn't a day when I believed we'd both live through it._

_And we hadn't._

**_60 YEARS LATER_ **

**Simon**

His face is so lovely. He has wrinkles around his eyes, the ones that come from a lifetime of smiles. He holds my hand as if it will make it all go easy, _make me go easy._

I believe him. Because he saved my life. Took me out of a place where I never even knew escape existed. He saved me from my own thoughts, helped me fight my demons. I loved him for it.

But his face was too round and his eyes too green, and when I pushed, he never pushed back.

I didn't deserve him, not when I still walked around with someone else's name written on my half healed heart. My heart that he still loved, even when it was stuttering it's final beats, even when it still beat to the broken memories of someone else's face.

He loves me, so I put on one last smile for him. He is a man of God, he tells me to say my final prayer as he kisses my lips one last time.

I close my eyes and I whisper my soliloquy. My one salvation, my only demise. I say his name.

_"Baz."_

**Baz**

I haven't left America in years. I don't leave Vegas much. Afraid I will see his face in a crowd, estranged yet so familiar. 

Yet here I am, taking another flight, like I did all those years ago. This time, to go back to him.

Lamb keeps a hand on my back, grounding me as we walk down to our seats. He holds my hand when he sees me fidgeting around and getting nervous. I appreciate him for it. 

I can't believe I'm going back to see him. 

_Simon Snow._

_The way you were. There wasn't a day when I believed we'd both live through it._

We make our way out of the airport and call ourselves a ride. I get a terrible sense of déjà vu. I'm going through all the motions in reverse. Memories that I have spent years burying all come rushing back.

I catch a look at myself in the rearview mirror. I don't look more than a few years older. 

I wonder how he had aged. I hoped that the years had been kind to him.

Lamb is a calming presence beside me. He never lets go of my hand. 

I wonder what kind of life he had lived. If he had met someone who had made him as happy as he was kind, I wonder if he had finally found his peace out mind. 

I find solace in telling myself the exercised lies that I had been practising to keep myself going through this. We had too much history, it would've never worked out anyway, we were bound to crash and burn.

_Simon Snow._

_You were the sun, and I was crashing into you._

The air is still damp from the rain and the grass smells fresh. The scent of dirt and roses hangs in the air. 

At the sight of where he is supposed to be, my breath hitches in a way I didn't know it was still capable of.

There is a man up front. He keeps taking breaks to collect his breath or wipe the tears out of his eyes. I catch enough of his words to know that it's his husband. I see him patting the back of an older woman with graying hair, and with a jolt I realize it's Penelope. I've never seen her cry like this.

Lamb and I stay in the shadows. I don't trust my legs, so I gracelessly fall to the ground. 

My mind goes numb. I realize that it will never stop hurting. Everything I had pushed into a corner of my mind keeps coming back. And I let it. I let myself feel it.

What had I done?

_I’d wake up every morning and tell myself …_

_I’d tell myself …_

Someone is standing at the front talking, but I don't have the focus to listen.

The man and Penelope go stand next to the pyre. 

The young man who was giving the eulogy steps down, goes to stand next to Penelope and puts an arm around her. 

He looks too much like Simon.

All three of them are crying. So am I. 

I never thought. 

Back in the forest fire. All those days when I wanted to end it all.

I never thought, I would be the one watching this happen to him. 

He was so alive.

Tears keep falling and making my vision hazy. I keep wiping them off. I have to see this.

_I’d wake up every morning and tell myself …_

The young man nods at Penelope. She raises a shaking arm up. She makes a circlular motion in the air but nothing happens.

It takes me a moment to realize she is casting. 

She takes a deep breath to steady herself. Then she brings her hand down in a swift motion.

_I’d tell myself …_

The pyre catches on fire. 

Penelope nearly falls back as the young man catches her in his arms. Lamb puts a hand on me, afraid I might go in and jump after him. His fear isn't without reason.

I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to save him. I don't know how to go back and just hold him one last time.

I will the time to stop.

The pyre keeps burning. 

_This will end in flames._

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY OHMYGOD after I titled this fic, I opened Carry On and saw that right next to the quote (that I titled this fic with), Simon talks about how Baz used to threatened him with a funeral where he would be burned at the pyre. I never even noticed that but brb I am crying. Here is that snippet;
> 
> “That’s what my mother used to say,” he said. “Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder.”  
> It’s always fire with Baz. I can’t believe he hasn’t incinerated me yet. Or burned me at the stake.  
> He used to like to threaten me with a Viking’s funeral, back when we were third years. “Do you know what that is, Snow? A flaming pyre, set adrift on the sea. We could do yours in Blackpool, so all your chavvy Normal friends can come.”
> 
> ***
> 
> If it hurt you to read, I assure you, it hurt me more to write it.  
> THANK YOU SO MUCH TO MY WONDERFUL BETAS that I harrased into reading this. Ana, Katt, Allison and @simoncult1 on twitter. This would not have been half as good (or painful) without you. I love you guys.
> 
> ***
> 
> To cleanse your palette, I highly recommend reading my fic There's a Light That Never Goes Out. It has SnowBaz fluff, and it's full of SnowBaz in love and happiness and hope. It's up on my ao3 account. ❤
> 
> ***  
> Feel free to leave hate in the comments below.


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